Don’t be like Sdom
We learn in the Talmud, Sanhedrin 109a that the people of Sdom have no share in the world to come. This is based on a verse in Breisheet (13:13):
The people of Sdom were evil (ra’im) and sinful (chataim) towards God exceedingly.
According to the rabbis, they were judged evil in this world and sinful in the world to come.
Rav Yehuda said: They were evil (licentious) with their bodies and sinful with their money.
The Rabbis taught:
The people of Sdom became arrogant because of the bounty that God lavished upon them.
In the Book of Job (28:5-6) we read a description of Sdom at the time of her tranquility when she was blessed with natural resources and was free of crime and dangerous animals:
There is a land where food once grew; but its place was transformed resembling fire. It was a place whose stones were sapphires, and it had dust of gold.
The people of Sdom said: “Inasmuch as Sdom is a land from which bread comes forth…and its very dust is gold, why do we need wayfarers who come to us only to deprive us of our money? Let us undertake to mistreat all non-Sodomites so terribly that they will no longer desire to travel through our territory.”
In Bamidbar Raba 9:24, God says to the people of Sdom: “Do you, in return for the favors I have conferred upon you, seek to obliterate all memory of the alien foot from our midst? I will obliterate all memory of you from the world!”
We read in Job 28:4:
A river bursts forth from its normal flow, to where it is unknown to human feet; it rises and surges over people.
God caused the destruction of Sdom by diverting a stream of fire and brimstone from its heavenly course, raining it down upon Sdom and utterly destroying it.
The actions of the inhabitants of Sdom against wayfarers ultimately caused its destruction.
When we drive by Sdom and smell the sulfur from the ruin and see that even today, nothing grows there, we should remember why the area was destroyed, why the people who lived there have no place in the world to come and why we should go out of our way to help others rather than alienate them.
